


A Matter of Worth

by ant5b



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Ducktales Family Fic Challenge, it's a bit of a downer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 20:41:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13220838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: "I just want my family back."





	A Matter of Worth

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Ducktales family fic challenge on Tumblr!

Donald knew his place. 

In a way, he’d always known it. 

Secondary to Della, whose spirit was too great for this world to contain. Whose exuberance and adventurousness he could never fault, even when it took her away from them. 

Expendable, most of all to his uncle. 

Even now, a decade later, he still woke to the feeling of phantom hands against his back, shoving him forward and allowing him to plummet into the gaping maw of the unknown. 

A failure, in life, in work, and in parenthood. 

For all that Donald’s luck was rotten, it wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t hold down a job, why his boys were forced to wear hand-me-downs, why he was unable to afford a proper home. 

Donald knew he was a poor excuse for an uncle, much less a father. His boys deserved someone good, someone who needn’t rely on his rich uncle to put a roof over their heads. 

Scrooge deserved someone skilled, someone daring and smart, who could keep up with him and the triplets and keep them all safe. Scrooge deserved  _ Della _ . 

Even in death, he measured his worth against that of his sister and found himself wanting. 

But, maybe just this once, he could do something right.

 

Donald was trapped in a nightmare, and for once it wasn’t of his own imagining. 

Magic arced in the air, sinister and black, in a concentrated storm on the shores of the bay. Its source was pure malevolence, an entity that should’ve been dead and dust, but instead stood in the eye of the storm, more living shadow than living being. 

Magica de Spell was back, and she had his family. 

Webby and the boys were suspended at least ten feet off the ground in a crimson bubble of pure magic, shouting and uselessly beating tiny fists against its sides.

Scrooge’s situation was more dire. 

Also floating in midair, Magica had ensnared him in glowing red tendrils, which tightened with her every word as she gloated in his face. 

As for Donald, he’d been forgotten. 

The initial blast of magic had knocked him off his feet, the fierce winds keeping him pinned against the sand. He wasn’t a threat, not really, and Magica treated him as such. 

He watched her drag Scrooge down to her eye level, a hand pressed against the vines constricting his uncle’s chest. 

“It’s over, Scrooge,” she said, quiet and sure, her voice only audible over the roaring of her magic and the wind because she willed it so. “Your dime is mine, and soon all of your riches will be too. You were pathetic, so distracted by your family, that you didn’t even anticipate my return. Though I  _ warned _ you.”

Scrooge made a show of coughing. “Yes, well, when ye banish your enemy to a nightmarish hellscape no being’s ever escaped from, ye tend to think  _ that’s that _ !”

“A mistake on your part,” Magica replied coolly, though something cold, ancient and cruel entered her eyes. 

Donald felt the icy fingers of dread trickle down his spine, and terror goaded him into rising to his knees, pushing himself off of the rough sand. 

“I won’t kill you, Scrooge,” Magica went on, again too calm for Donald’s liking. 

“It would be far too quick a punishment. No,  _ you _ , Scrooge, I will imprison in the same endless void you stranded me, where you will live out the rest of your  _ pathetic _ , solitary existence until the nothingness drives you insane. And when you beg for death, there will be no one to hear you.”

“Get on with it then!” Scrooge hissed, the vines growing taught. “I don’t remember you talking this much before I banished you!”

Magica tapped the edge of his uncle’s beak. “Patience, Scrooge. First, I think I’ll take care of the children.”

She raised her hand toward the bubble the kids were still trapped in, as cavalier a movement as her words, and a rushing sound filled Donald’s head as terror rendered him nearly insensate. 

“ _ No _ !” Scrooge choked out, desperately thrashing against his tightening bonds. “Magica, if ye harm one  _ feather _ on their heads, I  _ swear _ _ —” _

“ _ Stop _ !” Donald shouted at the top of his lungs, the single word sounding as if it had been torn out of his throat to be heard over the roaring wind. 

He was standing now, though he had no memory of doing so. 

Magica turned to look at him for the first time, the storm around them quieting. It only took a moment before recognition illuminated her gaze. 

“The nephew,” she nearly purred, and Donald fought a shudder. 

“And father,” he asserted, his hands balled into shaking fists at his sides. 

Magica’s eyes glinted. “And what is it you want?”

“A deal,” Donald replied, memories of his past magical encounters at the forefront of his mind. He held out his hand, his heart in his throat. “I just want my family back.” 

“Donald,  _ what _ —” Scrooge started to say, only for his words to die with a sputter as the magical tendrils tightened around him. 

Magica quirked a brow, though Donald couldn’t tell if she was interested or amused. “You have nothing to offer me.”

“Like you said, I’m Scrooge’s nephew,” Donald pointed out, swallowing when the air crackled with magic and the wind picked up around him. “The mansion, the Money Bin, everything would be open to you.”

She glanced down at his offered hand, still hanging in the air between them. 

“And you’d be willing to give up your freedom, your life, for—”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Donald interrupted emphatically. 

Scrooge was beginning to look ashen, and his kids were pounding even more fiercely on the walls of their floating prison, their cries muted but still audible, though Donald didn’t dare look away from Magica. 

After what seemed like hours, an oily smile slid over Magica’s face that had his insides in knots.

“Deal,” she said smoothly, enclosing his hand in an handshake that was like ice. 

She released his hand and the cold remained, spreading up his arm at a rapid, numbing pace. But in that same instant Scrooge’s bonds and the children’s bubble prison vanished, and they fell onto the sand several feet below.

“Uncle Donald!” the four kids cried almost as one, frightened and confused. 

“ _ Donald _ ,” Scrooge gasped, still wheezing and too weak to stand, but locked his desperate gaze with that of his nephew. 

But the cold had spread to Donald’s chest, freezing his breath, and he only managed a fragile smile. 

Magica snapped her fingers, and Donald collapsed onto the sand like a puppet with its strings cut. 

Donald didn’t hear his children scream, or his uncle’s sob. He vanished into darkness afraid, but proud of the fact he’d managed to do one good thing for his family. 


End file.
